


oh to be free and finally me

by BloodRaven55



Category: RWBY
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/F, Future Fic, Implied Sexual Content, Introspection, Near Future, Non-binary Blake Belladonna, Non-binary character, One Shot, and blake and sun being best bros, basically just a, but also just some cute bees, finally the adam mentions are very minimal so nothing major there to worry about, in particular there's, it's only rated t for some super mild, oh and there's a, specifically in the, when they get to vacuo, with a lot of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21725701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodRaven55/pseuds/BloodRaven55
Summary: Normally Blake wouldn’t have an issue picking out an outfit that will fit her preferences, but this time feels different. She isn’t quite sure what she wants.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna & Sun Wukong, Blake Belladonna/Adam Taurus (mentioned), Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 18
Kudos: 198





	oh to be free and finally me

**Author's Note:**

> Not too much to say, but I just want to note that I am gender non-conforming myself and the way I dress is a significant part of how I feel comfortable in myself so this is partially based on my own experience. I adore the non-binary!Blake headcanon for an awful lot of reasons and so this is pretty much my love letter to that idea.

Vacuo is dry and dusty, but Blake already prefers it to Atlas. There’s fewer mines, fewer racists, fewer people like Jacques Schnee, fewer reminders of Adam, and it’s considerably warmer. But that also causes a problem, in that she knows she’ll get unbearably sweaty and uncomfortable in mere hours if she keeps the skintight leather she’s currently wearing.

Normally she wouldn’t have an issue picking out an outfit that will fit her preferences, but this time feels different. She isn’t quite sure what she wants. In the White Fang she tended to simply let Adam choose her clothes for her, because she knew he would make her feel guilty—feel like she was disregarding what he wanted—if she selected things to wear that he didn’t like.

When she first arrived at Beacon she made a few small changes, not as many as she would have liked thanks to his voice still whispering in her ear, but enough that she felt just a little like herself again. After the Fall of Beacon she mostly leaned towards something that was practical for the weather in Menagerie, too busy dwelling on other far more serious matters to care about the fabric covering her body.

And finally from Ironwood she requested an ensemble based primarily on the fact that she knew Adam would have hated it. She needed to feel as far out of his control as possible, so she shed both her hair and her previous style, opting for something bright that clung to her body and her soul. But now she thinks she’s ready to make a choice just for herself, and she isn’t even totally sure what she wants when she has no other factors to consider except for her own wishes.

She wanders the market street of the town in which they’re staying, eyes roaming the stalls for anything that might catch her eye. A lot of the garments on display are different to what she’s used to seeing—looser, and with colours that are duller and lighter in tone—but she doesn’t dislike it. She stops at a merchant selling footwear, and she hands over a few Lien in return for some sturdy brown boots.

They’re totally at odds to her usual choice in shoes—after all, while they might have thick soles, they don’t have any heels to speak of—but they fit her snugly, and she knows they’ll be useful with the difficult terrain. She’s happy to sacrifice a little flamboyance in her aesthetic if it means being able to manoeuvre with ease across the uneven sand and rough stone roads.

The next thing she buys is a plain white shirt. Again, it’s nothing flashy, but it’s the opposite of tight-fitting, and she likes the way that it emphasises the broadness of her shoulders. The v-shape cutting down from the neckline gives her room to breathe, and when she walks away it’s with just a little more confidence than she had before, her head high and her steps sure.

When it comes to the lower half of her outfit, her decision isn’t hard. Here, she doesn’t feel an urge to make any drastic changes. She picks out a pair of tight trousers similar to ones she’s worn before, with the only significant difference being that the material is cotton instead of leather so that she can exert herself without worrying about the heat, and the colour is tan instead of black to blend into her surroundings better.

After a moment’s consideration, she adds a belt with a beautifully embossed golden buckle as well, feeding it through the loops and fastening it snugly. She’s gained some muscle mass since the last time she went shopping for clothes, and unlike before she doesn’t need the belt to hold up her trousers, but she likes the way it looks—the way it feels—anyway, especially the fact that it’s a little chunkier than she’s used to.

Lastly she scours the remaining vendors for something to complete the look. She’s sure that what she has so far would be fine, but she still gets the sense that there’s something missing. She’s almost at the end of the street—and almost at the point of giving up and heading back to regroup with the others—when she spies what she’s looking for, and she makes a beeline for a kindly-looking old man whose wares are half-hidden behind the bigger stall next to him.

There’s an assortment of clothing and jewellery arranged carefully in front of him, and she looks over her options, feeling like there are almost too many things here that she would want if she could afford them all. In the end she settles for a sleeveless black leather waistcoat, which she leaves unbuttoned both for extra mobility and because she likes how it looks, and a pair of earrings, hoops of ornate gold engraved with a pattern that she likes to think resembles a dragon.

She got her cat ears pierced back in Mantle after the nick of a blade left her with a scar on one of them, eager to show that she wasn’t ashamed to bear the marks of battle by drawing attention to them with jewellery. But the silver earrings she was wearing up until now would clash slightly with the golden buttons of the waistcoat, hence her decision to swap them out for a better match.

Satisfied that she’s purchased everything she wants for the time-being, she leaves the market behind, but rather than taking her back to the ramshackle building where the group are staying, her feet carry her to a nearby outlet selling drinks, and she orders a chamomile tea before taking a seat at one of the tables outside. For some reason she doesn’t feel quite ready to face the others yet, some small part of her unsure of how they’ll react.

Her cup has just been set in front of her when she hears a familiar voice call out from the street, and she lets out a sigh as her hope of having some peace and quiet for a while goes up in smoke.

“Blake? Hey, it is you!” Sun comes to an awkward stop standing next to her table, rubbing sheepishly at the back of his neck. “Sorry, I know you’re probably doing some of that serious thinking stuff by yourself and all, and I’ll get out of your hair— I just wasn’t sure if I recognised you. You look kind of different, huh?”

She rolls her eyes at his lack of subtlety, still just as present after all this time, but she feels like maybe she’s ready to voice some of the feelings tangled up inside her to someone, and Sun is someone she can trust without being worried about how he’ll respond. She doesn’t feel the same pressure with him that she does with her team, or her parents, and so she gestures to the seat opposite.

“Yeah, I guess I do.” He hesitates, clearly having learnt his lesson about intruding on people’s private moments. “It’s okay, Sun, you can sit down. I’ve been meaning to make time for us to catch up anyway.”

He drops into the chair across from her, and she glares at him when he lifts her cup with his tail, stealing a sip of her drink. “So,” he starts as he returns it to her with a cheeky grin, “what’s with the new look? I mean, it suits you—like, _really_ suits you—but it’s kind of a change from usual.”

“Maybe it was time for a change,” Blake says thoughtfully. “Honestly I’m still not clear on exactly where my head’s at myself yet, but this just felt right. More like me.”

“I dig it.” Sun nods, tone a little more serious— well, as serious as he ever tends to get at least. “Whatever ‘it’ ends up being. But if you’re sure about it, why were you sitting here all by yourself when I know the gang were expecting you back, like, an hour ago?”

Blake looks away, out over the barren vista of dunes and rocks that spreads as far as the eye can see once you pass beyond the edges of the little town that they’ve made their temporary home. “I can’t help the niggling fear that they won’t all be quite as chill about this as you. I can’t lose any of them, Sun. In any way. Especially—”

“—Yang.” He finishes the sentence for her, nodding sagely when she looks back at him in surprise. He’s got more perceptive as well as more mature since she last spent time with him. “I get it, dude. I do. You’ve been through a lot, and being nervous is totally natural. But, Blake, your team—your friends—they all love you. Not for the way you dress or how you see yourself— just for _you_ , whoever that is.”

“I know, but still—” She’s about to refute his certainty, but Sun isn’t done talking.

“And Yang… that woman is head over heels for you. It’s so gross how in love with you she is. So believe me, you have no reason to be worried there. She’s not one to judge, and she’s gonna think you look _crazy_ hot— mark my words.”

Blake laughs despite herself, and she swallows down the last of her tea, enjoying the way that the chamomile soothes her remaining nerves. She finally thinks she’s ready to head back to meet up with the others, and so she stands, and when Sun gets up too she leans in for a hug. He freezes for a second, clearly caught off guard, and then he returns the gesture for a beat before pulling back.

“Thank you, Sun,” she says, feeling brave enough to give a genuine smile. “I mean it.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll see you and the rest of the gang around.” He winks at her and starts to make his way in the opposite direction, leaving her alone once more, but considerably less anxious than she was when he arrived.

Maybe she just needed someone to listen while she tried to order the mess of thoughts in her head, but either way she feels a lot more relaxed than she did before, and her steps feel lighter—her posture taller—as she walks back towards their lodgings.

When she steps inside into the rundown entranceway the wooden floorboards creak underneath her new, much heavier boots, and she winces. She heads up to her own room first, struck by a sudden urge to fully see the change for herself. The mirror propped up against the far wall is old and stained, but it’ll do the job, and she goes to stand in front of it, scrutinising her reflection.

She knows that nothing about her body has changed—her skin is still just as smooth, her hair is still just as soft, her nails still just as neatly trimmed—but somehow everything looks different all the same. Her jaw is more prominent, her arms are more defined, her chest is flatter, her features are sharper. Maybe the shift is only in her mind, or maybe it’s only because of the clothes, but it comforts her regardless.

It occurs to her with the force of a physical blow that she simultaneously looks far more like her childhood self but also so completely separate— far older than her twenty years. Adam didn’t just warp her soul into what he wanted, he warped the way in which she presented herself to the world too. But not anymore. Something that was out of place has clicked back into alignment, and a weight has been lifted that Blake didn’t know she was carrying.

She’s distracted by a knock on her door, and she goes to answer it, knowing that she can’t put this off forever. When she opens the door she finds Yang on the other side, and her partner stares speechlessly for several long moments. Blake looks down at the floor, ears flattening against her skull as she starts to feel a little self-conscious, the doubt creeping in.

“Wow…”

She lifts her head again as Yang’s awed whisper cuts through her insecurity, though, because there’s no mistaking the amount of approval in her partner’s tone. Yang’s eyes are wide, her expression nothing short of wholly lovestruck, and Blake offers a tentative smile. “You like it?”

“I— It’s—” Yang’s cheeks flush as she tries to put together a coherent sequence of words, and Blake giggles because how adorably flustered her partner is already more than answer enough.

“I’m going to take that as a ‘yes’ then,” she teases, and Yang’s blush only gets worse.

But then her partner’s face softens, and she holds Blake’s gaze. It feels intense, like Yang is seeing more than just her updated choice of clothes, but she doesn’t mind. It doesn’t feel intrusive, it feels reassuring, like her partner is actually taking the time to try and get to know this new part of her—to understand it—even when Blake doesn’t fully understand it herself yet.

“Do you want to talk about what, uh— what brought this on?”

“I will,” Blake promises. “Soon, just— just not right now. I need to get it all organised in my head first.”

“That’s fine,” Yang says, stepping closer to loop her arms around Blake’s waist in a loose but comforting embrace. “Whenever you’re ready, baby.”

“I love you,” Blake murmurs, and she pulls Yang in with a hand behind her neck, kissing her slowly—deeply—and enjoying the steadfastness of the connection between them, strong and unwavering as ever.

“I love you too,” Yang breathes, punctuating each word with another soft, tender meeting of their lips. “And you look—“ Yang cuts herself off to kiss her again, like she can’t bear to be any further apart from Blake than absolutely necessary. “—you look really sexy right now.”

Blake laughs as Yang’s face turns bright red again, and she grins as she tugs her partner back into her room, kicking the door shut behind them. Her first thought is that Sun was right, and her second thought is that she’s lucky— very lucky indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope it was good and thank you so much for reading! Please do leave a comment if you want since they make my day and I'll see y'all next time <3


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